Beyond the Idea

How to Execute Innovation in Any Organization

By: Vijay Govindarajan, Chris Trimble

Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith

The New York Times bestselling authors of Reverse Innovation and How Stella Saved the Farm distill more than a decade of exclusive research into one short, powerful, action-oriented book.

Companies stumble when they imagine that innovation is mostly about ideas. The reality is that ideas are only beginnings. Indeed, even a company with the world's best idea still faces a devilish challenge: it must build the business of tomorrow without endangering the business of today.

Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble are the world's leading authorities on the successful management of innovation. In Beyond the Idea, they distill more than a decade of research and insight into a practical, accessible, read-at-one-sitting handbook that offers invaluable guidance for anyone charged with making innovation happen: executives, managers, consultants, project leaders, and teams.

By offering specific action steps, Beyond the Idea extends the elegant conceptual insights from How Stella Saved the Farm, Govindarajan and Trimble's parable. Beyond the Idea shows exactly how to:

- Build a team with a very particular structure, one that makes it possible to simultaneously build something new and sustain what exists.

- Manage any innovation initiative as a disciplined experiment.

- Implement three distinct models for moving from ideas to action.

Beyond the Idea is an essential book for any business that recognizes that innovation always has been, and always will be, the key to long term growth and vitality.

Critic reviews

“This book is a defining work on how we invest in and engage in the future.” —William Green, Executive Chairman, Accenture on Reverse Innovation

“Unique and important work, hard-hitting examples, detailed and actionable steps, and clear explanations.” —Omar Ishrak, Chairman and CEO, Medtronic, Inc. on Reverse Innovation

“The global community is now so networked that innovation can come from just about anywhere and make an impact everywhere.” —John T. Chambers, Chairman and CEO, Cisco Systems on Reverse Innovation

“This elegant story, rich in insight into what it takes to make innovation happen, has already had tremendous impact in GE executive development programs and on key innovation projects.” —Stephen Liguori, Executive Director, Global Innovation and New Models, General Electric on How Stella Saved the Farm

“Govindarajan and Trimble have managed to do the unthinkable -- develop a case study that is both seriously thought-provoking and truly entertaining.” —Dolph Johnson, Senior Vice President, Human Resources, Hasbro on How Stella Saved the Farm

“We have found How Stella Saved the Farm to be a very useful tool for raising the key challenges in organizing and executing innovation initiatives.” —James Euchner, VP, Global Innovation at The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company on How Stella Saved the Farm

“Deere has already held innovation workshops based on Stella, with very positive results. This is a powerful, practical tool for learning and executive development.” —Mary Jones, Vice President Global Human Resources, Deere & Company on How Stella Saved the Farm

“At first glance, I was skeptical. By the end, I was blown away. In a quick, fun read I found brilliant simplicity, capturing best practices for enabling and managing innovation. I continue to recommend Stella to executives seeking to turn new ideas into material business outcomes.” —Roy Rosin, former Vice President of Innovation, Intuit on How Stella Saved the Farm

Great for senior executives.

Great read for senior executives and for those involved in strategic planning and organizational realignment.

Not good as an audio book.

What disappointed you about Beyond the Idea?

The content reads as academic work by people who've consulted on business but never lived and died by it. As an audio book, it's next to worthless - 30% is just the reader describing tables that are impossible to track in your head.

They talk about their intentionality in keeping it short and digestible so even an executive would have time to read it, but I don't think I could get anyone to finish it - the content is really dry. It desperately needs an accompanying .pdf to articulate the visuals.

What could Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Adding an accompanying .pdf would make the audio version infinitely more useful.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

It offers a framework for evaluating innovation in a large organization, which is useful for continuing a healthy conversation about how to do it better.

outdated reader and content

this book could have been an email. the worst reader ever was the icing on the boring cake.